Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. added less than half a percentage point of market share apiece in U.S. Internet searches last month, while Yahoo! Inc. lost ground, according to ComScore Inc.

      Google had 66.3 percent of the market in October, up from 66.1 percent the previous month, Reston, the Virginia-based research firm said today. Microsoft’s Bing climbed to 11.5 percent from 11.2 percent.

      Microsoft and Yahoo are teaming up to challenge Google’s dominance in the market, relying on a 10-year search agreement that puts Bing on Yahoo sites. Combined, they handled 28 percent of queries last month, up from 27.9 percent. The companies are jockeying with Google for a bigger piece of the search advertising market, which may account for 49 percent of total U.S. online ad spending this year. That’s up from 47 percent in 2009, according to EMarketer Inc. in New York.

      Google, based in Mountain View, California, fell 17 cents to $583.55 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Yahoo, located in nearby Sunnyvale, declined 9 cents to $16.15. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, dropped 24 cents to $25.57.

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